Going far back in time with some stories of tragedy

MATT HUGHES

mhughes@timesleader.com

FOSTER TWP. – Tommy Flynn’s mother wailed with grief for her son, cut down by a Confederate soldier’s bullet.

Additional Photos Below

IF YOU GOWHAT: Civil War Living History Weekend

WHERE: Eckley Miners’ Village, 2 Eckley Main Street, Weatherly

WHEN: Today, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

ADMISSION: Adults $6, senior citizens $5.50, children $4To see additional photos, visit www.times

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“My boy! My boy! He was only 18-years old,” she cried between sobs. “Our husbands, they die in the mines, our sons get killed in the rich man’s war and their sons have empty bellies. What more do they want from us?”

Her husband, clutching her tight by his side as they walked toward the patch-town’s Catholic church, comforted her. At least he didn’t die of starvation in Ireland, he said.

But the somber sobriety of the scene was soon broken, as Tommy’s surviving brothers clashed with mine super John Hoovler, who had the gall to suggest Mrs. Flynn need not worry; her sons could have jobs in the Eckley Mine, and she could find work at a textile mill in Wilkes-Barre.

Tommy Flynn’s funeral was one of more than a dozen events at the Civil War Living History Weekend held at Eckley Miners’ Village Saturday. The weekend of activities, which continues today, features about 200 Union and Confederate re-enactors performing drills, firing period rifles and staging a tactical skirmish.

But events like Flynn’s funeral, set against the backdrop of the reconstructed mid-19th century mining village, brought a broader breadth of perspective to the weekend and helped to transport spectators back in time.

Walking up the town’s main drag, one could hear the tune of banjos and clacking washboards chiming “Oh my Darling, Clementine” occasionally punctuated by rifle fire, smell food cooked over open campfires wafting from soldiers’ camp sites, and pause for a moment to watch Arthur Bransky, dressed as snake-oil salesman Dr. Kelly, peddle his medicinal cure-all.

“I often tell the kids you can always ask your parents to take you to an amusement park,” said Bob Vybrenner, president of Eckley’s Board of Directors of the Associates. “Ah, but to travel in time. That’s the experience you get here.”

“I was just at the funeral, and that was pretty similar to what a mining family would have experienced,” said Michael Pozzessere, a history teacher at Hazleton Area High School who came to enjoy the re-enactments. “They really put a lot of work in to make the experience as realistic as possible.”

Many of the volunteer re-enactors staging the event said that ability to step into another world is exactly what brings them to events like Eckley’s.

“It’s really neat when you wake up in the morning and watch the sun go across the sky ‘till it gets real pink as it’s doing down in the evening,” said 81st Pennsylvania Company K re-enactor Ted Dombroski, of Hazleton, as he sat beneath a tent chatting history with a handful of re-enactors from 12th New Jersey company. “It’s just spending the whole entire day outside. How often do you get to do that in the modern world? It’s an escape from the modern world.”

“We try to get in character; we take it very seriously,” said Confederate re-enactor Bob Abel, of Hellertown, who portrayed a member of the company in which his ancestors served, the 1st Texas Company E. “We’ll joke around maybe in camp where no spectators are watching, but when we get on the fields, it’s serious business.”

Natalie Kost, of Freeland, who portrayed one of the mourners in Flynn’s funeral, said she’s been to “hundreds” of battlefields and re-enactments, but was so taken by the event at Eckley she was moved to tears.

“It’s my first time doing it and I was so moved,” Kost said. “I truly ended up crying. It’s truly a part that you play, but the feelings are real. That could be your son in there. That’s probably what this is all about: the feelings. Feelings don’t change.”